World of Warcraft will soon introduce a whole new economy, allowing players both to spend in-game gold on real-life game time and to exchange real-life money for tokens that can be sold for in-game gold.12.
The system is simple, and best summed up in this graphic (via battle.net):
World of Warcraft Will Start Selling Subscription Time For Gold
The new system will launch "in an upcoming patch," Blizzard says, and though they haven't announced specific pricing details yet, they do have a big Q&A (that you can read here) addressing many potential questions. Each token can only be sold once; gold values will fluctuate based on supply and demand; and they're hoping this system will "lead to fewer account compromises and a better game experience overall."3
This isn't a particularly unusual move for World of Warcraft, as other MMORPGS (like EVE Online) have already taken steps like this to regulate their gold economies and help crack down on grey-market gold sellers. And although this new system will inevitably lead to speculation about the future of Blizzard's big cash cow, it's worth keeping in mind that WoW still dwarfs every other subscription-based multiplayer game on the market.
Below are comments from wow players:
Wait. I'm confused here. So by "the shop", they mean the cash shop, correct?So essentially, the only way to buy game time with gold is to buy a WoW Token that someone else purchased with their own actual cash and then put up on the auction house at a price they themselves set?I'm sure this is going to be an extremely viable option for absolutely no one. - Archaotic
Any way it goes down blizzard still gets payed, that'll be about all they care about. - Shardik The Man Bear
I'd actually totally disagree, this system worked wonders for EVE Online, it can work here too. - RerTV
Viable for those who have the gold to buy it? There's plenty of people who have more than enough gold for this to be a viable option to them. Depending on the pricing it might even be viable to myself (I only have around 100,000g). Say each token is valued at 10k. I'd gladly pay the 10k for a month, although I have paid friends/guildies less in the past - around 5-7k.All this is doing is making such transactions legit, albeit probably a bit more pricey. We'll have to wait and see. - Who_BobJones
More wow info at: Gold4fans
The system is simple, and best summed up in this graphic (via battle.net):
World of Warcraft Will Start Selling Subscription Time For Gold
The new system will launch "in an upcoming patch," Blizzard says, and though they haven't announced specific pricing details yet, they do have a big Q&A (that you can read here) addressing many potential questions. Each token can only be sold once; gold values will fluctuate based on supply and demand; and they're hoping this system will "lead to fewer account compromises and a better game experience overall."3
This isn't a particularly unusual move for World of Warcraft, as other MMORPGS (like EVE Online) have already taken steps like this to regulate their gold economies and help crack down on grey-market gold sellers. And although this new system will inevitably lead to speculation about the future of Blizzard's big cash cow, it's worth keeping in mind that WoW still dwarfs every other subscription-based multiplayer game on the market.
Below are comments from wow players:
Wait. I'm confused here. So by "the shop", they mean the cash shop, correct?So essentially, the only way to buy game time with gold is to buy a WoW Token that someone else purchased with their own actual cash and then put up on the auction house at a price they themselves set?I'm sure this is going to be an extremely viable option for absolutely no one. - Archaotic
Any way it goes down blizzard still gets payed, that'll be about all they care about. - Shardik The Man Bear
I'd actually totally disagree, this system worked wonders for EVE Online, it can work here too. - RerTV
Viable for those who have the gold to buy it? There's plenty of people who have more than enough gold for this to be a viable option to them. Depending on the pricing it might even be viable to myself (I only have around 100,000g). Say each token is valued at 10k. I'd gladly pay the 10k for a month, although I have paid friends/guildies less in the past - around 5-7k.All this is doing is making such transactions legit, albeit probably a bit more pricey. We'll have to wait and see. - Who_BobJones
More wow info at: Gold4fans